Aspects described herein relate to configuration of data center resources of a data center utilizing an elastic network for data transfers.
Bandwidth is conventionally provisioned to meet a projected peak data demand and paid for over the course of a contract that may stretch for several years. Peak demand may occur relatively infrequently, resulting in over-provisioning for a significant amount of time. This over-provisioning of the bandwidth results in excess costs to a customer who is paying for unused bandwidth over the course of the contract.
An attempt to lower costs by provisioning less bandwidth over the course of the contract is largely ineffective because of expensive overcharges when peak demand exceeds the amount of bandwidth provisioned. Bandwidth considerations and costs are especially important in large data center applications, such as data mirroring or backup, where the amount of data being transferred, and therefore the resulting bandwidth consumption, is potentially massive.
Elastic network relationships provide benefits over conventional static network relationships by allowing bandwidth allocation to change. However, the configuration of the data center components can present a bottleneck that prevents applications of the data center from leveraging the full potential afforded by a greater level of bandwidth allocation.